It is fairly likely that if you're signing up for a new Google
account these days, it is because you would like a Gmail account. Or
perhaps you just want to keep track of favorite videos and subscriptions
on YouTube.

For some of you, it might be because you want a Google+ account.
Well, whether you want one or not, when you sign up for a new Google
account these days, you're getting both a Gmail account and a Google+
profile automatically registered to you.

The Google Operating System blog
has a rundown based on its own experiment with testing these new
requirements, which have not been officially explained or revealed by
Google itself.

Actually, this all makes perfect sense, and it is much easier for new
users to have everything set up at once rather than having to
separately sign up for Gmail and Google+ later. If you're not interested
in Google+, no one is forcing you to make friends or create an
elaborate profile.

It's also a win for Google as it tries to boost awareness and usage
for its social networking platform that debuted last summer. Hype for
Google+ has died down considerably over the last few months.

Yet interest in Gmail certainly hasn't. Yesterday during the
company's quarterly call with investors, CEO Larry Page revealed that
Gmail has more than 350 million active users as of the end of the fourth
quarter of 2011.